There is an interesting case out of Olympia, Washington where a transgender person is alleging discrimination after being asked to leave the women’s locker room due to his exposing himself to young girls. In a case that is likely to become more common with the expanded rights for transgender individuals, the question is whether schools should bar such exposure in areas with young children or teens.
The incident occurred at Evergreen State College where a 45-year-old male student, who dresses as a woman and goes by the name Colleen Francis, was naked in the women’s locker room. Young girls use the facility from the nearby Olympia High School and a local swimming club. The mother of a 17-year-old girl complained about Francis walking around naked with his genitals exposed and a female swim coach confronted him as he lay sprawled out and exposed in a sauna used by the girls. She asked him to leave and called police. However, she later apologized when she discovered that he was a transgender person. The local district attorney also declined criminal charges because he felt the “criminal law is very vague in this area.”
Francis is alleging discrimination and complained that “[t]his is not 1959 Alabama . . We don’t call police for drinking from the wrong water fountain.”
I am not convinced by the analogy, however. While I agree with the prosecutor’s view of the murky legal standard, it seems that the college and city would have a legitimate interest in barring such exposure to young girls in such shared areas. Obviously the best solution is a separate locker room but that might impose high financial and logistical challenges. If someone is still anatomically male, it presents a legitimate concern for parents. While this is a college, it is common for such facilities to be shared with local schools.
What do you think?
Source: KIROTV
I believe we’re more likely to have a transgender reader here than say a black, Hispanic, reader. This group here seems to be pretty Caucasian from what I can tell.
Not sure what to do about cases involving persons who are anatomically ambiguous. But, for those like the transsexual in the story who are fully, anatomically male or female, then they don’t belong in the opposite sex dressing room.
Buck Angel needs to use the ladies room.
How about the people with a penis use the locker room with other people that have penis, and the people who have a vagina use the locker room with other people that have a vagina?
Looks like were headed for three locker rooms His, Hers; ant Theirs.
OS,
I was thinking primarily of waist down hardware as, unlike this particular scenario, most public restrooms are just that and not a locker room. While Buck’s appearance with pants could cause some consternation in a women’s bathroom, in a strip down environment like a locker room (or upon investigation by authorities in a non-strip down environment) the proper resolution to the issue would be . . . um . . . evident. In a plain bathroom scenario where there are often stalls and plumbing issues that will de facto often “self-segregate” or provide a modicum of privacy, a locker room is a situation where specific genitalia holding sway over choice I don’t think presents a substantive problem. Until society outgrows the really rather silly division of plumbing access by sex – which is purely rooted in Puritanical prudishness – I don’t see another viable solution other than separate TG facilities and that? That smacks of separate water fountains and a black counter. Do you see any other solution? I think what I said was pragmatic, but that being said, I would like to hear from a transgendered reader their take on the separate facilities issue. I’ve only ever met a few TG individuals and this topic never came up, but for me, if I were in that situation, I would find the separate but equal treatment personally offensive as a purely ethical matter.
Otteray,
How about an wristband which is in a checkboarded black-white pattern. Meaning; “My mind is clear, it is just my body that I am changing. The guess is yours to make for awhile yet.”
There is of course the social view which GeneH espouses. I agree with that as the best solution.
I would rather however seek an ultimate high ground where exposure of the human genitalia in both tumescencent and non-tumescent form is not a subject of concern for children. I don’t know if you permit naked babies on the beachs there, but it is related to that.
Genitals have an everyday function (urination) which can be understood by a child at any age. How one explains the consideration of the public’s requirement remains to the family to decide.
I think that the exposure of naked Adam and Eve with figleafs was a sick sight. Had God not intended them to reproduce in the Garden of Eden? The whole legend is ridiculous and related to our prudities today, which serve us poorly.
Gene,
There is a problem, even with your solution. How would most women feel if they went into the restroom, only to encounter Buck Angel.? This is Buck’s upper half. His hardware on the lower half is still female. It is a real world conundrum faced by transgender folks all the time. Perhaps somebody smarter than me can figure out a solution.
Here is a photo of Buck Angel. Maybe some of our women bloggers will have a suggestion.
http://polkaostrich.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/buck-angel.jpg
Dredd:
you are one crazy dude [in a good way].
This is the LGBT’s Jose Jimenez, Topo Gigio, Hop Sing and Step n’ Fetchit.
I think it causes some confusion, but there are some “christian” women who are looking to get unnecessarily outraged. I like what Joe Biden said the other day about the discrimination.
I’m going to go with the “discretion is the better part” arguments against. I’m a supporter of the LGBT community, but when it comes to facilities issues like this, the separate but equal argument simply fails. If you are gender transient.transgendered, use the facility appropriate to your hardware. It’s simple common sense.
She should have used a bit of common sense. If that means that she doesn’t use certain facilities, so be it. Maybe by checking to find out when the girls would be using the facilities and then using them at a different time would have helped.
I go completely with what Bob said . The procedures is not complete and untill then he should not expose his genitals in public (girls locker room)
Perhaps one of his crabs was infected with Sacculina, causing gender recognition dysfunction.
The sad sack disease.
A man has no business in the changing room for young girls and women. Even if he is confused or thinks he’s in the wrong body.
Transfolks are not “confused” about their gender. Their born with genitals that aren’t a match with who they are. The story is crudely reported and it’s unclear whether the defendant has any documentation of being trans. Exposure as opposed to say, tumescence, seem like different issues for consideration.A 17 year old = young girl—not sure that’s really the best description. Evergreen State is a very liberal college, a sortof public version of Oberlin. Not quite the same thing as this happening at a local Y.
Your confusion regarding your gender identity is not the State’s emergency.
An inability to reconcile your body with your mind is an illness by definition; thus the reason you put your sex change procedures on your medical insurance.
Learn how to cope until your sex change is complete.
nuckin futz.